Mike SembosLaurenellen McCann ’09 is the executive producer of the hour-long, weekly podcast/radio show The Good Fight with Ben Wikler, a program that covers grassroots activism and politics with a humorous edge. Its listener base includes fans of NPR and The Colbert Report. She was formerly the national policy manager at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that calls for heavier government accountability. Time magazine editors and a panel of millennials recognized Larenellen’s achievements by including her on their list of “30 People Under 30 Changing the World.” Follow Larenellen on Twitter @elle_mccann to keep up with her daily activities.
Bill FisherOn Oct. 22, 2013, in a historic San Francisco industrial space that once housed the printing plant of William Randolph Hearst, nearly 100 Wesleyan alumni and friends enjoyed an intimate and thought-provoking conversation with two of the nation's foremost voices on food and the food industry: Michael Pollan P'15 and Jonathan Bloom '99. The occasion was "Table Talk," an event underwritten by generous Wesleyan donors to help support financial aid; the place was The Box San Francisco, in the South of Market district. President Michael Roth welcomed guests to the event and introduced Pollan and Bloom. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adX_2JUPqzM[/youtube] Watch this video…
Kate CarlisleOne of Wesleyan's most distinguished alumni, Trustee Emeritus John Baird ’38 P’69’78, died on Dec. 27 in Glenview, Ill., after a brief illness. “His life of service to Wesleyan, his community, and his country serves as a standard for us all,” said President Michael Roth. After graduating from Wesleyan in 1938 and receiving his MBA from Harvard in 1940, he served with distinction as a captain in the U.S. Army during WWII. After the war, he joined his family's prominent Chicago real estate firm, Baird & Warner, where he worked for the remainder of his life. At Baird & Warner,…
Brooks Kraft '87 has been named 2013 International Photographer of the Year, the top honor given by the International Photography Awards (IPA) in its annual competition. The award was announced at New York's Carnegie Hall during the 11th annual Lucie Awards ceremony recognizing the accomplishments of photographers working in editorial, advertising, journalism, fine art, fashion and beyond. The IPA's competition is one of the most ambitious and comprehensive in the photography world today; this year's field included more than 10,000 entries from 103 countries. Kraft received the top honor for his portfolio "The Last Days of Barack Obama’s Campaign," which…
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Cynthia RockwellOver a lunch of pizza in Beckham Hall on Dec. 5, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, a serial entrepreneur and author of Without Their Permission, addressed a crowded hall of nearly 200 students. He spoke on the importance of the internet, which allows us to access “an incredible amount of information,” and our ability to make use of it to develop new ideas, through maintaining an entrepreneurial mindset. Asking for a showing of hands of those involved in their own creative endeavors, he invited students to seize all opportunities to tell people about their idea—and to view all failures as the…
David LowKate Cooper ’82 has written a new history of the early Christian movement, Band of Angels: The Forgotten World of Early Christian Women (Overlook Press), in which she provides a vibrant narrative of the triumphs and hardships of the first mothers of the infant church. As far as recorded history is concerned, women in the ancient world lived almost invisibly in a man's world. Piecing together their story from the few contemporary accounts that have survived required painstaking research, and Cooper offers a fresh perspective on the triumphs and hardships encountered by these early women. The book tells the intriguing…
Stuart Frank ’70, has been awarded the Historic New England Book Prize for 2013, for Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved: Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum, published in Boston by David R. Godine. The award was formally presented on Nov. 3 at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The book is also the recipient of the Boston Bookmakers Prize for the year’s best work in the pictorial category. Frank’s book brings his expert’s eye to the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s intriguing collection. By the middle of the 19th century, the New England port of New Bedford was among the five richest…
Larry Woolard II '03 was sworn into the City of Middletown Police Department in October 2013. At Wesleyan, he was a religion studies major and captain of the football team. "Larry was quite a football player for Xavier High School and for the Cardinals, especially in an exciting Homecoming win over Williams. I suspect he is one of Wesleyan's first local police officers," said John Driscoll, advisor in the Wesleyan Career Center.
On Nov. 20, Zoe Mueller '13 spoke about "GIS in the Real World: How to Land a GIS Job" during National Geography Awareness Week celebrations at Wesleyan. GIS (geographic information systems) allow users to visualize, question, analyze, interpret, model and understand data to reveal relationships, patterns and trends. Mueller spoke to current students about careers in GIS, differences between non-profit and for-profit work, and applications of GIS outside of academia. Wesleyan's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences also sponsored multiple events in honor of National Geography Awareness Week, including a crowdsourced GIS map and geocaching scavenger hunt.
Dr. Henri Lamothe ’80, MD, CMSL, received the Dr. Gary Ogden Rural Health Practitioner of the Year from the New York State Association for Rural Health. As the medical director of 22 emergency medical service (EMS) agencies in Allegany and Cattaraugus counties, Dr. Lamothe ensures that the EMS providers he represents have the skills and training they need to provide emergency medical care. Paramedic Todd Reisner, general manager of Trans Am Ambulance Service in Olean, N.Y., said of Lamothe, “He’s a very active medical director. He makes himself available to the EMS providers and his vision of a solid EMS…
B. J. Buckley ’76 has written a new collection of poems, Spaces Both Infinite and Eternal (Limberlost Press) which considers the natural world, quiet, unspoken events—the accidental death of an owl, a porcupine gorging on apples, unobserved fragrant meadows, the roar of wind through cottonwoods. The presence of man is barely acknowledged in the rugged western landscapes of these poems. Buckley’s voice is a quiet guide through rural, mountainous territory. Her book is printed letterpress, using lead type on a old hand-fed platen press. A native of Wyoming, Buckley lives on a ranch near Power, Montana. She has worked in…